Build Diary
May 2007
1st May 2007

Went over to Wokingham (my dads house, and GARAGE!).
Fitted the steering rack (little bit of filing of the mounts to avoid the diagonal) the billet mounts don't go easily over the rack, so it might need a little later fettling.

Tried the non-adjustable steering column out (Bodger from LCB site) fits nicely, I sat in and played with the steering wheel as is required in these situations (very satisfying)!  I need to send him the ignition switch back, and I need the lower column bush from him (picked one up from e-bay as it was easier than explaining).

The column connects up to my downlink, and the downlink fits to the rack, extension of the lower link is going to be needed (no great surprise).  Extension looks like about 245mm.  There are loads of ways of modifying, I need to have a quick look (fury build site photos is really good).  I think I will wait until more stuff is together before getting the link together.  There don't seem to be any dependencies on this.

Collected the rear hubs and such.  I need to trim these down so I can fit the escort front disks (instead of Sierra disks) due to problems of fouling the inside of the wheel.  All good fun.  Once that is sorted, then I am close to getting the back wheels on.


5th May 2007
Rear hub saga continued.  Tried to take about 5mm off the radius so that they fit inside the escort front disks.  2 hours later, a few blunt tools, 0.4mm off the radius.  I think I have previously heard mention that these are hard, it is true (the cutting bits that I had weren't anything special and normally used for plastics and aluminium, and the coolant flow wasn't working on the lathe, so I am sure that someone who have some proper knowledge could do this, that person wasn't me).  I needed a new plan.

New plan was to mount the hubs onto their stub axles, mount this in a vice and mount an angle grinder so that as the grinder turns it turns the hub but also abraids it.  It takes about 2 hours grinding per hub, but I managed to get it set up so that I could leave it running (I didn't go far).  Eventually I got the first one finished.  The second is half finished (decided to give the neighbours a break from the noise at around 9pm).  On the drum braked hubs that I have there are 2 large holes in the hub, these are to allow a tool through to undo the axle carrier to upright bolts (they are inaccessible owing to the drums).  When the 'machining' is finished there is about 2mm of metal left on the outside of the holes (photo needed).  The only downside of this approach is that you end up with a layer of iron filings over your whole garage (shed in my case), about 50cc's worth which isn't much but is going to take some tidying up.

Stoneleigh tomorrow.  Really looking forward to it.

6th May 2007
Went to Stoneleigh with Ben.  Excellent time, saw a few Phoenix of various age.  Didn't manage to find any cars with GSXR1100 engines.  I should have made more of an effort and organised to meet people.  
Picked up a petrol tank (allyfab Fisher Fury compatible, 6 gallon, baffled, 3.2kg) at a good price (£75), really nice people and top quality work.  I had intended to get a plastic tank (car builder solutions), but read that the screw fittings can have sealing problems to the tank when I found the aluminum one for much less there was no issue.  Not sure what to do about venting, as my filler cap has no venting capability, also I need to find out the standard Fury fuel level sender.  Picked up a few grub screws for my AVO shocks, and a brace of horns (impulse purchase).

Had to bribe Ben with a toy car (he is 4).

7th May

Finished the other rear hub, fitted the brakes, fettled the bracket for the caliper mounting bracket.  I should really remake this, as the holes are so elongated that it is a bit silly.  Cutting and filing 5mm steel isn't very appealing, but I guess I will do the right thing in the end.  I need to get the whole thing bolted together on the car, with the handbrake cable routing sorted out, and the hoses planned.  Then between paneling and putting this together properly I will sort some quality brackets (probably).

Bolted engine into cradle.  Nice, except the top holes are not a good fit (filing needed, not a major deal as the top 10mm bolt doesn't do much compared to the bottom 12mm bolt).  A mid-week bit of work.

26th May

Some gradual progress, but big rush on at work to get stuff together for a conference, and then attending conference.  All very productive, but not on the car front.

Progress includes; sorting out the petrol tank.  Specifically, non-return venting valve (ThinkAutomotive TRV45, which can just about be fitted using the sender hole for putting the nut on the back). Fitted sender which required a bit of bending of the wire so that at empty the float is right on the bottom of the tank, and full is full.  One important thing is to get the float near the centre of the tank, this way it is less sensitive to cornering.  This isn't a massive deal, but if you have driven a Peugeot 306.....  Also sorted out the outflow (AN6 fitting Male-Male, then 90 degree AN6 union), and worked out a plan for fueling.   Not sure what kind of fuel pipe to run from back to front, but probably just go with appropriately specified rubber hose.

Other minor progress; bought various adapters and unions for the oil system.  Then engine outlets seemed to be 11/16 inch (which is a rare but occasionally available size), and use a massive banjo arrangement.  All a bit wierd.  But actually they turn out to be M16, I don't like Banjos for high flow applications (like oil) so have swapped these for something simpler.  There is plenty of space in a car for this (on a bike the downpipes are a bit tight around this area which probably explains Mr Suzukis strange engineering choices).

I need to get the engine bolted in, the radiator and oil cooler bolted in, and then I can workout pipe lengths.  Not high priorities, but hopefully sometime this week.

28th May


Picked up some 8mm o.d. hard line fuel pipe.  Why is some pipe measured i.d. and some o.d. ?  Its a bit like threads and such, each idea makes some sense but when you add them all up it gets bloody confusing!  Also got a couple of olives to solder on.  

re: i.d. and o.d.  I guess it depends where the mating surface is.  The 8mm o.d. copper mates on the outside (the given dimension), whereas my rubber fuel hose mounts from the inside (the given dimension).  As they say measure twice cut once (or in my case measure once, purchase twice).

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